Just a few random comments...

1) Happy Bi-annual celebration to me!- Yesterday marks 6 months of me living in NYC! And, I'm not even thinking of where I'll move next! Good signs.

2) I baked cookies last night to commemorate my friend Viv and my bi-annual celebration of working at Harris. I made cookies last night and it pays to follow the directions. I remember just throwing everything for the cookie recipe together in college and while still tasty, a gooey mess. Yesterday's cookies were spot on. Yum.

3) I am enjoying Facebook.com. I signed up a few months ago and am still having a blast. I never got into MySpace although I was told "you seem like someone who'd be on MySpace."

4) I'm getting really excited for spring. It's in the mid-40's today and GORGEOUS.

5) I'm even more excited that my sisters are coming in t-7 days! Whit gets here on Wednesday night and Ab gets here Friday morning. It's going to be so much fun!

Star Spotting #3

Ok, blurry picture, but it was the one that was most accurate to what he looked like when I saw him.

This is Michael Showalter, who I saw getting on the subway as my friends Lauren, Emily and I were getting off at our stop. I of course, thought he was someone I knew, went to school with or was one of my many subway crushes.

It was Lauren, SATC expert, who identified him as Berger's friend Billy from Season 6, episode 7. If you don't recall, this is the episode where Berger breaks up with Carrie via post-it note "I'm sorry. I can't. Don't hate me."

According to IMDb, he is also member of New York-based alternative comedy troupe Stella along with Michael Ian Black and David Wain.

Rollerama!!

I went rollerskating for a friend's birthday party last night for the first time in forever. Well, I think I took Miss Sarah to a rollerskating birthday party when I was in college but let's just say its been some time since I wore skates. Spending 3 1/2 hours on skates led me to draw some observations on skating,

1) Any woman who has the skill to squat in a tiled bathroom while wearing rollerskates has my respect.
2) The movie "Roll Bounce" had a huge impact on a small segment of the population in New York City. There were people there last night that were full on disco dancing in roller skates. I found this to be absolutely terrifying and was really proud of myself when I could skate to the beat.
3) Rollerskating is for everyone! Black, white, straight, gay, young, old, bikers, non-bikers, men dressed like Russell Simmons, it seemed like everyone was represented last night.
4) Rollerskating did not have a significant presence in the lives of several of my friends last night. Some of them said that it was the first time they had gone rollerskating. Now to my estimation, I have probably been rollerskating 20 times. Midwestern thing?
5) I must have had amazing leg muscles when I was little or I'm just getting old. The combination of rollerskating and lots of squats the night before has made it very challenging for me to sit, walk down steps, walk in general. I'm looking forward to vegging on the couch tonight and watching Grey's.

Booty shaking

For those of you that don't know, since moving to NYC I have started, brace yourself, going to the gym. Pretty soon after my move I realized that, 1) I now have the time to exercise, and 2) it's probably good for me so I should.

For the last month or two, every Monday night I've been going to a Masala Bhangra dance class and shaking my booty; well , in Masala Bhangra you shake everything. I tried to find a good description of Masala Bhangra online but eerily there wasn't one. Most of what I found says that MB is a like an Indian Hip Hop infusing traditional Indian music with western rhythms.

I love the class and the more bouncy you are, the more accurate it looks. Unfortunately, I'm still pretty stiff in my shoulders and haven't found my rhythm there yet, but I hope with time I will. It's a great class and it's always packed. If you have access to a Masala Bhangra class, you should definitely try it or if you don't have downstairs neighbors you can get the workouts from Netflix. You feel like an idiot the first time you do it, but it's really fun.

Adventures in Jersey

I went to Ocean City/Atlantic City this past weekend for my friend Erica's bachelorette party. It was a lot of fun and the time flew by. Highlights of the weekend include:

* Awesome beach house that we stayed at in Ocean City - while not very beach feeling in February, it was huge and full of yummy treats that we definitely snacked on.

* Lots of great conversation - Friday night the people coming up from DC didn't get in until 12:45am so we stayed up until around 4ish chatting. Let's just say that 9 girls talking (and drinking) in a room with hardwood floors is VERY loud.

* Dinner at PF Changs - I forgot how yummy it is.

* Dance party at RiRa (sp?) - the band looked punk/alternative with their stocking caps, vintage T's and facial piercings. Then they broke out into covers from the last 10-15 years. It was AWESOME.

* Piggyback ride from guy with mohawk - I don't really have trouble making new friends so when we left RiRa I made friends with a guy with a 6 in high mohawk, tattoos and interesting back piercings. I mentioned that my feet were tired and he offered me a piggyback ride so he walked me over to where our van was picking us up. Sweet deal.

All in all it was a great time and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone again in May. I'll post a picture of all of us as soon as I get some copies from one of the 4 girls with cameras.

Home, Sweet, Home

While walking home from the subway the other day I was thinking about how when I need to get out of the city, it's not just "not city" that I crave, it's the openness of home.

I'll be riding in a bus to Atlantic City this weekend for my friend Erica's bachelorette party and while it's nice to get out of the city, there are trees everywhere along the roadside blocking your view. I guess I'm just used to the openness of SD.

For those of you who haven't been to SD, here is a photo gallery of the towns/area around where I grew up (Jefferson). Isn't it pretty?!?! Thanks to Deb Truhe for the link!

New Crush

I'm the worst at uploading photos so here is a publicity pic...

HOWEVER, I thought I'd update you on my new music crush. I went to a Joshua Radin show a couple of weeks ago and he was amazing. I first heard him on the Last Kiss soundtrack that Ashley sent me and absolutely fell in love with his sound. It's very Simon & Garfunkel sounding so if that's not your thing I'd probably avoid it.

The show was a steal, $15 to see him, his girlfriend Schuyler Fisk and Ingrid Michaelson. He was so excited to have sold out the Bowery Ballroom that he kept taking pictures of the crowd and himself in the crowd with his digital camera. I love performers that are new enough they still realize how cool it is to make a living doing what they love.

You can check out his music on his MySpace page and if he's in your town, you should definitely check him out.

Oh the weather outside is...

...really dang cold. The last two weeks in New York have been absolutely freezing, which while compared to SD, it's tropical, but like I've mentioned before. I walk a lot more these days.

Walking around the other day when my jeans started to get stiff because of the cold, I was reminded of this really fun game that my friends and I used to play at recess during the winter. Ok, the game goes like this, We all huddled in a corner of the building, and we sat on our heels really squished together. If you were lucky that day, you were in the middle of the huddle and therefore warm, if not, you worked as the cold barrier for everyone else. I'm not sure how we decided who would be in the middle, maybe we traded off, I hope so. Any of my friends from childhood that could shed light on this would be greatly appreciated.

Not all recesses were like that though, once it snowed so hard we were able to make a snow castle in the snow with kid size ceilings, separate rooms, it was awesome. I obviously was not the architect of this, I'm sure the boys actually made it and I just enjoyed wandering around. Until the teachers broke it because it could "collapse" on us. Dang safety rules!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Nope, not today. But J.K. Rowling announced that the final installment of the Harry Potter series would be released on MY BIRTHDAY! July 21st.

Hopefully, no one will tell me how the book ends since I will likely be celebrating my 26th throughout the weekend of the 21st-23rd and won't get to it until Sunday night.

I'm Famous

...or, I just live pretty far from my alma mater.

I was looking through the KU Alumni magazine this past weekend (after a long happy hour) and went to "Class Notes" which is the closest thing to gossip I get from KU. For those of you who don't know, Class Notes is where they list where people are living/what they're doing, if they've gotten married or had a baby.

I always assumed you got in the class notes by sending the Alumni Association something you wanted to include. Turns out I was wrong. I was scouring the "b'03" listings and I run across one, "Hey! Like me!". No, actually me.

"Roxanne Karpen, b'03, is living in New York City and works as a Senior Research Associate at Harris Interactive"

Turns out they just go through the records and I'm assuming, pull those that live furthest from Kansas. Regardless, I was pretty excited.

Hey. How do I know you?

To my knowledge, I have never been accused of being shy. So, it should not come as a surprise to any of you that instead of sitting and contemplating how I know someone before approaching them, I make them help me figure it out.

This has happened on two such occasions when watching KU basketball in recent weeks. The first person I saw we spent about 15 mins trying to figure out how we first met. We have connections through about 4 different paths but we couldn't remember how we first met. We finally figured it out by her descriptions of my cute, really short hair. Ding. Freshman year English.

The second time happened this weekend watching the Kansas/Texas A&M game (don't want to discuss the result of the game). I saw a guy that I definitely remembered and he had on a Kanas shirt which, of course, led me to assume he went to KU. He lived in Lawrence but went to Baker, a college nearby. After he moved from Lawrence he moved to the Plaza (like me) and yep, lived a floor above me. He lives about 6 blocks away now. Small world.